in reply to Regex problem

If I understand your question correctly, the problem isn't with your s///, it's with your initialisation of $value. It should be single-quoted, not double. 
my $value = 'sample1\*sample2\*sample3*sample4*sample5';
$value =~ s#\*#STAR#g;
print $value

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Output: 

sample1\STARsample2\STARsample3STARsample4STARsample5

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Re^2: Regex problem
by roboticus (Chancellor) on Aug 02, 2007 at 23:13 UTC
    FunkyMonk:

    I think you meant:

    my $value = 'sample1\\*sample2\\*sample3\\*sample4\\*sample5';
print $value,"\n";
$value =~ s#\\\*#STAR#g;
print $value,"\n";

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    as the \ is a special character and needs to be quoted in strings and regexes. The * is special in the regex and also needs quoting.

    ...roboticus

    UPDATE: ikegami just pointed out to me that I am a doofus incorrect, as demonstrated:

    my $value = 'sample1\\*sample2\\*sample3\\*sample4\\*sample5';
my $value2 = 'sample1\*sample2\*sample3\*sample4\*sample5';
if ($value eq $value2) {
   print "I am a studly programmer\n";
}
else {
   print "I am a doofus\n";
}

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      In single-quoted literals, escaping \ is optional if it's not followed by \ or the string delimiter. 

      $x = 'a\b';   print("$x\n");
$x = 'a\\b';  print("$x\n");

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      a\b
a\b

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